


Memories

by sidebyside_archivist



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M, POV Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-01
Updated: 2007-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:15:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25503496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidebyside_archivist/pseuds/sidebyside_archivist
Summary: Near the end of his life Leonard McCoy receives a visit from an old friend.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Spock
Kudos: 6
Collections: Side By Side Issue 21





	Memories

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note : A modified version of this story was first published in Charisma 3, several years before _Star Trek: Generations_ was released.
> 
> Note from LadyKardasi and Sahviere, the archivists: this story was originally archived at [Side by Side](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Side_by_Side_\(Star_Trek:_TOS_zine\)) and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2020. We tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact us using the e-mail address on [Side by Side’s collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/sidebyside/profile).

Moving to the far wall he peered intently at the thermostat, although he knew that the room was not, in fact, cold. It was hot. Vulcan hot. Turned up by his own hand two hours before in anticipation of the now overdue visit.

Leonard McCoy shivered in spite of what the thermostat told him. The cold wasn’t in the air. It was within himself, lodged stubbornly in his aged, infirm bones. Nothing to be done about it. The marks of age. He’d probably be cold even if the room was as hot as Hades itself.

 _Eight years_ , he thought morosely, eyes scanning his bland and all-too familiar surroundings. It had been eight years since he’d first walked through that door, leaving the tranquil warmth of Georgia behind him forever. Eight years since his body had started to betray him and his health began to fail. Starfleet, always careful to take care of one of their own, had brought him here when it no longer became possible for him to live alone. The Shevar Medical Complex, standing in the heart of Washington, D.C.; a sleepy little town that once, centuries ago, had housed the government of the mightiest nation on Earth. The city was primarily a tourist attraction now, festooned with relics of the past; architectural splendors, marble spikes that pierced the sky for no real purpose at all. Statues and slabs of stone celebrating wars of long ago and the forgotten soldiers who had fought in them. Ancient buildings of granite and limestone. Cherry trees. Museums. He swore once that every other building in the city was a museum.

 _And Shevar_. Last but not least Washington was the home of Shevar. The finest medical complex on the continent. The most brilliant doctors, the softest beds, the latest equipment. The best that money, or Federation credits, could buy.

Those doctors, that equipment, had kept him functioning, allowed him to live far longer than his father or grandfather would have been able to, but they did not heal him. He continued to survive, but he didn’t improve and a part of his mind was always a little bitter about that. Shevar had become almost a prison to him but he had stayed because, in truth, he had nowhere else to go.

And the one bright spot in this monotonous existence was the visitor he had been anxiously awaiting for the past several hours.

Spock.

In the spring, when the cherry blossoms began to bloom on the mall outside, Spock would always make the journey from Vulcan to visit him. Once, years back, during a particularly intense bout of melancholy, he had asked McCoy to return to Vulcan with him, had in fact presented a rather impassioned argument to try and convince the doctor of the practicality of the idea. Medical facilities were comparable to those of Shevar, the arid heat would probably be more comfortable to him than the humidity of this city sitting on the edge of the south. His arguments were logical, of course. Flawlessly logical.

But McCoy had said no and the reason had nothing whatsoever to do with logic. It was based on pride and stubbornness. And perhaps just a trace of embarrassment. He knew how infirm he was. Hell, he couldn’t even walk outside for five minutes in the sun without someone to help him, hold his arm, keep him on his feet. And the last thing he wanted was to become a burden to the only real friend he had left in the world. Spock had endured enough pain in his life. He didn’t need that.

Scowling, the doctor walked slowly back to the window, to stand and look out into the darkness. “Rigel,” he whispered, his attention settling on the white supergiant glittering brilliantly from over seven hundred light years away. “And there’s Aldebaran.” _As tight-lipped about it as an Aldebaran shell mouth._ The words always came to him when he saw her, the memory of that day as clear as if it had happened only this morning.

The thought turned his mind once again to his tardy friend and his eyes sought out Eridani, the star that had nurtured Spock and the civilization that spawned him, a rather unremarkable star in every other way.

His gaze moved on, past the Malurian system, Omicron Ceti, the tiny suns that marked the location of Organia, Scalos, Deneva. So many memories. So much history. Such a life he had led. Blue eyes scanned the heavens, tracing out a pattern that he’d charted long ago. Often he would spend hours standing right here before this window, following the course of his life as it was laid out in the sky overhead, letting the images weave through his mind in a seemingly endless stream. Many an empty night had been filled that way, more than he cared to think about. In a strange way he still, after all these years, felt drawn to the sight, felt as if he were more at home there, as if a part of his soul refused to accept the fact that his life among the stars was over.

The realization, more times than not, brought him pain. And loneliness. For those days were gone now, many years behind him. And Jim, Jim was gone, too. Cut down in what should have been the twilight years of his life; killed in a stupid, pointless accident on a class three cruiser. No reason for it. A wiring glitch in a computer that wasn’t caught in time. A power surge that blew through the faulty circuit and tore a wall out of one of the bulkheads.

And Jim, he’d just been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Walking on the other side of that wall, Spock, of course, at his side. The explosion had ripped a hole in his chest the size of a grapefruit and he’d died right there, in Spock’s arms, less than a minute later.

The doctor shuddered. He’d heard tales of the accident, of how Spock had tried to resuscitate him for hours, refusing to give up, refusing to let the other doctors give up. Finally it took a hypo in one arm to get him away from the body that had already begun to grow cold. _Illogical to try and pull him back, Spock. He was dead and if there’s one thing you as a scientist should have recognized, it was death._ In a part of his mind he’d dearly wished he could have been there to help Spock deal with the pain that was unbearable, with the wound that would never heal. In another he was profoundly grateful that he was not.

The following day he’d received a message; Spock telling him of the tragedy. Concise words. Every pertinent detail included. _I regret to inform you that..._. The phrasing hid so much sorrow behind it that it had nearly broken McCoy’s heart.

After that Spock had never been the same. Withdrawn. Silent. Pulling into himself like a stone-faced android. He’d resigned from the service less than a week later although Starfleet had done everything short of offering him an admiralty to try and keep him in.

But Spock would have nothing of it. The Vulcan Science Academy had been after him for years to join their staff and he’d fled within their walls like a felon seeking sanctuary, lingering on the ship that had killed his friend just long enough to secure the captain’s belongings and send them back to Earth, to his nephew, Peter. The young man was Kirk’s only relative; in all the galaxy the only living being to carry his genes, and the memory sent a familiar ache through McCoy’s chest. A life so rich, so full, should have had more people in it. Somehow it seemed a tragedy that the captain had no one.

 _Just you, Spock_ , he thought sadly. _Always you. Never did get more than ten feet from his side if you could help it. You sure did love that man._

The doctor shook his head. “Yes, siree,” he continued, aloud this time. “You sure did love him. And he loved you, too. Did he ever tell you that, I wonder? Did Jim ever once say ‘I love you’? I hope that he did ‘cos I know you, Spock. Stubborn, thick-headed Vulcan. You’d never admit you needed to hear that from him but _I_ know that you did. Sure hope he said it to you once or twice. You deserved that for sticking with him all those years.”

McCoy stiffened, aware only now that he’d been carrying on a rather lengthy conversation with himself. _Getting too damned old._ He looked around somewhat sheepishly. _If I keep this up they’ll put me in a padded room somewhere._ The window allowed some of the cold to seep in from outside and he shivered and moved back to the center of the room. _Damn it, Spock. Where in the hell are you?_

He glanced up at the chronometer on the wall. Spock was forty minutes late. Thin lips compressed into a frown. Spock was never late. One of the few constants in his life. Carved in concrete. Vulcans were as punctual as the day was long and Spock was the ideal Vulcan.

Maybe the chronometer was wrong. McCoy felt his spirits lift. That had to be it. The chronometer was off, in need of repair. Damned fool mechanical device. He never did trust them anyway.

Turning away he walked to the bed and sat down, his mind returning once again to his friend.

Spock had gone far at the Vulcan Science Academy. Could have run the whole outfit within the first six months if that was what he’d wanted. But Spock wasn’t the ambitious type and he seemed content to stay at his post, teaching, doing research, living his own very private life.

The two men had kept in touch throughout the years, recording tapes passing back and forth between them at irregular intervals. And, although the Vulcan had spoken little of his professional life McCoy was aware of it. He’d followed Spock’s career from a distance, feeling an illogical pride when, two years after he’d returned to Vulcan, Spock had uncovered the principle that explained the solar neutrino problem. A puzzling inconsistency in stellar mechanics that had baffled scientists for centuries had finally been solved. Spock’s name became a household word for a few weeks after that. In scientific circles, where his reputation was already held in something akin to religious awe, it would carry respect and admiration for far longer.

Scarcely three months later he’d done it again. A quasar, given the poetic name of BR452A-3, had been discovered at the outer reaches of visible space, so close to the Big Bang that it was, possibly, the first thing to form out of the primeval fireball. But unfortunately the fledgling galactic core didn’t behave according to plan. In fact it acted in what appeared to be a wildly erratic manner, breaking all the rules of motion and red-shifts, throwing astronomy into turmoil. Word began to circulate that perhaps everything was wrong, that all the previous five centuries of work, of theory, had been based on a faulty foundation. If Spock hadn’t given such importance to it McCoy would have found the disarray amusing.

And then his brilliant friend had done the logical thing. He never could stand disorder so he proceeded to end it. He solved the puzzle, explaining everything in a series of lengthy, convoluted and hopelessly complex scientific reports. McCoy remembered how he had stared at the sheets and sheets of foot long mathematical equations that apparently answered all the questions concerning the peculiar anomaly. They made no sense to him at all. The fact that Spock not only understood them but actually _wrote_ them astounded him as much right now as it did that day forty years ago.

“All right, Spock.” He growled the words but there was more than a hint of affection in his voice. “You did okay. You did okay.”

He glared at the chronometer once again. “But you’re late, damn it! Where in the hell _are_ you?”

As if in response he heard a faint knock on the door. The doctor rose quickly to his feet. He’d recognize that sound anywhere, as gentle and unobtrusive as Spock himself. “About time, you blasted Vulcan,” he grumbled. Louder he called out, “Come in!” The door opened almost soundlessly and he had to fight off the welcoming grin as that familiar form appeared before him. Some old habits were tough to break, after all.

“Well, well. So you finally made it. I was beginning to think that you’d stood me up or got lost on the subway or something.”

Spock shut the door, his gaze never leaving McCoy’s face, and the doctor could clearly see the amusement in those eyes. Damned empathic Vulcan was reading him as if he was made of glass. But, determined to play his part regardless, McCoy stuck to his guns. Old habits were, indeed, tough to break.

He raised one hand in the air. “I know, I know. Subways have been outdated for a million years. But you know me. I’m just an old country doctor. Like the traditional way things were done. Not these newfangled contraptions.”

Spock moved to his side. “Good evening, Doctor,” he said softly. “I apologize for causing you concern.”

McCoy rolled his eyes. Spock, of course, had seen right through the smoke screen. A tried and true technique that had served McCoy well throughout the years although he doubted if Spock had ever really been fooled by it.

And if he was in the past he clearly wasn’t any longer.

However, the doctor was far too set in his ways to change now. He squared his shoulders, his jaw moving up and down. “ _Leonard_ , Spock. For god’s sake, we’ve known each other for two hundred years. Can’t you lighten up and call me by my given name. Just once – to make an old man happy.”

A ghost of a smile touched Spock’s lips. “Good evening, _Leonard_ ,” he repeated, putting a heightened stress on the final word.

Vulcan ribbing, about as close to a joke as his friend was likely to get, but McCoy stayed in character regardless. “That’s better,” he groused. “Good evening to you. And why are you so late, anyway? Thought maybe you’d been mugged or something. Scared me half to death.”

The words came out as if they had a will of their own, followed almost immediately by an instinctive jab lest Spock get any ideas that he _really_ cared that much one way or the other. “Hell, you might be as strong as a dozen puny humans but you never were much of a fighter, you know. Wouldn’t know what to do if someone jumped you in an alley somewhere. Probably try and bore them to death with a lecture on three-dimensional physics.”

Spock quite audibly sighed, apparently resigned to McCoy’s little charade. The only thing to do now was to answer the doctor’s question. _That_ would certainly knock it down. “I miscalculated and missed the earlier transport.”

McCoy’s eyes widened in disbelief. It did, indeed, knock it down, the doctor’s cantankerous façade falling away in a heartbeat. He began to laugh. “You’re joking. _You_ miscalculated?”

Spock gave him a regal look, one eyebrow disappearing beneath the symmetrical bangs. “I _am_ half human,” he replied.

McCoy’s laughter intensified. “Just like you to blame it on bad blood. Just like you.” He shifted his weight. With all this standing his legs were beginning to hurt. Inclining his head toward the bed he began to move to one side. “Let’s go sit down.” He started to walk, aware that Spock had reached out to grasp his arm. “I can do it. May not live as long as you but I can still walk. I’m not totally decrepit. Not yet. Not yet.”

Spock clearly did not agree. His grip tightened. And even though McCoy would have denied it on a stack of Bibles a mile high, the Vulcan’s attentiveness pleased him.

Together, their steps slowed by McCoy’s shuffling gait, the two men made their way to the bed. Spock eased the doctor down, then sat beside him, his body so close that their legs touched. McCoy could feel the Vulcan’s internal heat warm the air, the vague, underlying sensation of his personality tingling against his skin like a thousand tiny bursts of electricity. And he realized that, despite their acidic relationship over the years, the sparring, the occasional cruelties, he quite simply loved the man sitting beside him. Loved him more than he had ever loved anyone in his life.

With perhaps one exception.

McCoy instantly noted the shadow that came into the Vulcan’s eyes, mentally kicking himself for his thoughtlessness. Spock shifted his weight, moving slightly to one side. “Sorry,” the doctor said.

Spock took a deep breath. “It is quite all right. I understand. I too think…think of him often.”

 _I’ll bet. I’ll just bet you do._ He studied the Vulcan’s face, saw the haunted look reflected there. The sight of it made him regret his verbal barbs of a moment ago, wish, not unfortunately for the first time, that he could take them back.

But he couldn’t. So McCoy did the next best thing. He changed the subject. “How’ve you been?”

Spock’s focused his attention on the floor. “The year has been uneventful,” he began. “I have been doing research on subatomic particles for the past eight months, studying the rate of beta decay and its corresponding effects on muon acceleration. It has been a most profitable endeavor. We have made several discoveries defining the nature of the muon nucleus and its relationship to the other components of subatomic elements and quantum mechanics.”

He paused, cast an oblique glance to the side. Long-winded reply or no, he knew that he had not answered McCoy’s question. And the doctor knew it too. But, despite the weight of the years he carried and the consequent souring of his never sunny disposition, McCoy was at heart a most compassionate man. He let the evasion pass without comment.

Straightening his weary back the doctor smiled. “Well, that’s good, Spock. Glad to hear it. You never were one to waste time on anything.” He turned toward the window. “It’s getting pretty late,” he commented casually. “Can you stay the night?”

'Spock regarded him quietly and McCoy was once again struck by how youthful he seemed, almost as if he hadn’t changed at all in the past decade. Strange; in his early and middle years Spock had aged in a very human pattern but lately his Vulcan heritage seemed to be reasserting itself. Time slowed down, the lines of his face stayed as they’d been for half a generation now. His step was firm, his mind sharp as a tack.

McCoy studied the gnarled hands resting on his lap. His own biology, alas, had not been so kind. Already he was starting to feel exhausted, his joints aching with every beat of his heart. Damned biological clock. His life, he well knew, would soon be over. And then Spock would be alone. Completely, totally alone.

_Alone._

The thought had been plaguing him for years, although he would have visited the seventh circle of hell before he’d admit it to the man sitting beside him. He knew Spock better than anyone else in the universe, at least now that Jim was gone, and he understood just how much vulnerability there was beneath that tough Vulcan hide. Spock could bury himself ten miles deep in research, in complex scientific problems that left most everyone else shaking their heads in bafflement, but sooner or later he had to face the man in the mirror at night. The man who stood alone. Always alone. Dear god, ever since he’d known him Spock had always seemed so alone.

And it wasn’t in his nature, not really. McCoy had realized long ago that Spock’s yearly pilgrimage to his hospital room was more than simply an act of kindness. It was, for Spock, a catharsis of sorts, a rekindling of ties, a much needed brush with the old life, with Jim. He might live in solitude for fifty-one weeks out of the year but his human half still lingered inside somewhere and he needed that annual visit. McCoy knew he’d fit into their peculiar triad in a way that none of the other former crewmembers had and Spock needed to see him, to be reminded of how things once were. It was as if it helped him maintain his bearings, fortified him, kept him going for another year. Another year to pass through with no one at his side. _You loved him so much, Spock. So much. I don’t know how in hell you kept going._

Sitting here now, gazing into those dark and suddenly very human eyes, he could see the love hidden within them, could sense the need to reach out, could almost taste the emotion, the sorrow, the terrible aching sorrow that forty years had scarcely lifted off the Vulcan’s shoulders. Had not, in fact, touched at all.

And the aloneness. _Most of all the aloneness._ He’d heard Spock comment on that once and even though he was speaking with another being’s words on that day so many years ago, the sentiment might just as well have been his own. _You are so alone_. He could remember the scene as if it had happened yesterday, could recall how the perceptive words had chilled him.

Just as the look on the Vulcan’s face was chilling him now.

_Once I’m gone, my old friend, that final link will be severed, the last tie to those long-ago days on the Enterprise gone for good. Seems so far away; all those people, their faces, the sounds of their voices, the smell of the dining room, that awful soup you used to eat, and still do I suppose. Sometimes it almost seems as if I’d dreamed the whole thing. And when I’m dead you’ll be by yourself with those memories. Because I know you don’t see anyone else from the ship. Just me. I don’t want to see you alone like that, Spock. God, I don’t even want to think about it._

On impulse he reached out and took one slim hand within his own. Spock’s eyes widened with surprise but he didn’t pull away from the unaccustomed familiarity. The doctor held the hand in a firm grip, wishing that their lives had turned out differently, that they had not ended their existence so apart, so alone. So terribly alone.

“Spock…?”

The Vulcan waited, his expression a mixture of affection and puzzlement.

McCoy shrugged, not really knowing what he was going to say. Then the words came out without any conscious thought at all. “Jim really loved you, you know. Did he ever tell you that?”

He could actually feel the hand chill, the fingers tremble imperceptibly. But he strengthened his grip, refusing to let go. He had been rehearsing these words in his head for months, years. Now, finally, they were out and could never be recalled.

And in truth he didn’t want to take them back. For the words quite simply needed to be said, had been lying unspoken between them for as long as he could remember.

The Vulcan turned away, staring out into the darkness for a moment before shifting his gaze back to their intertwined fingers, and suddenly a staggering wave of sadness began to wash into McCoy’s mind, spreading out from their joined hands until it seemed to fill his entire being. Even after all these years the intensity of it surprised him.

“Spock...,” he began, a part of his mind wishing that he’d kept his mouth shut. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up painful memories. It’s just that, well, _I_ know how Jim felt about you and…you were so reticent about such things. I was….”

 _Damn it, McCoy. You’re saying everything all wrong._ He pressed his lips together. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. He had long since lost count of how many times he’d put his foot in his mouth.

But, fearlessly the doctor plunged onward. “What I mean is, I figured that he never wanted to embarrass you with sentimental statements and maybe because of that he never told you how much he loved you….”

Spock abruptly looked up, an astonishing expression on his face. And then he did something even more peculiar. He smiled, a true smile despite the fact that it held no joy within it. Suffused with melancholy and a deep, aching affection, it was, quite simply, a human smile.

“Doctor….” Spock’s fingers shifted until they were grasping McCoy’s wrinkled hand within their own strength. “Jim and I spoke of our love often.”

McCoy just looked at him.

Spock blinked back tears, the veins in his neck beginning to swell. “We shared our love. In every way. Physically, emotionally, spiritually. For nearly twenty years. Until he…until he died.” Lean shoulders slumped fractionally. Spock took a deep breath.

For a moment McCoy did nothing but stare. “You what?” he whispered at last.

“We were lovers,” Spock replied tersely.

McCoy’s jaw dropped, his mind going totally, completely blank. _Lovers? Holy shit!_ Sitting back he regained his senses as the words sank in. And realized that, despite the shock of Spock’s rather abrupt announcement, deep down inside he wasn’t really surprised. There had been a unique chemistry between the two of them almost from the day they’d met. Everyone on the Enterprise felt it – like an undercurrent that ran just below the surface. For the first few months he had simply attributed it to a good working relationship, a smooth meshing of two very different personalities, although in a part of his mind he’d always suspected it was something very different. Something much more.

Now he understood why. And with that new understanding came a realization, a true realization of the Vulcan’s staggering sorrow, a sensation as clear and distinct as if it were cut into his own soul. For, he well knew, there _was_ a certain advantage to being alone, a sense of removal, of disassociation. One was lonely but still one hurt less. There was a distance there that buffered the soul from the searing pain of love. Loss. Grief.

Looking into those alien eyes McCoy knew that Spock had suffered through it all. Intensely. Probably beyond his ability to understand. Far beyond. More than he truly wanted to think about. He lowered his head. “Spock…I’m sorry.”

Strong fingers tightened around his own knarled ones. “Do not be sorry, Doctor. We shared a love that was most profound. I shall carry it within my heart for all time, as will Jim.”

McCoy jerked his head up. It unnerved him to have Spock speak of Kirk in the present tense. The captain was dead, had been dead for a long time. And death was death. The end. Final. McCoy was a pragmatist. He accepted life on its own terms, as a brief moment in the sun followed by nothing at all. The countless beliefs in an afterlife that seemed to crop up everywhere in the universe were nothing more than fearful reassurances, wishful thinking. _Opiates for the masses._ Someone, an Earthman, had said that once and McCoy agreed with him completely.

Spock stared at the floor. “The captain was a very private man,” he said, the words directed so plainly at himself that McCoy almost felt like an eavesdropper, “but he always wanted you to know about our love. I recall him telling me once that, in a way, he sensed you already did. We discussed the matter several times. It was in deference to _my_ wishes that our bonding was known to only a very few. I was...”

For the first time since Spock’s mention of Kirk’s name, he faltered. “I was concerned that, should our relationship become common knowledge it might have unfortunate repercussions for him.” A pause. “The upper echelons of Starfleet command are not known for their liberal thinking.” Glancing up, he gave McCoy a look that the doctor could not quite identify. “Jim acceded, somewhat reluctantly, to my wishes but, nevertheless, it bothered him that you had not been told so finally I gave in to his arguments.”

The Vulcan grew silent, seemed to be warring with himself about something. He took another deep breath before continuing. “Jim could be a most persuasive man when he wished to be. He, he recorded the message to send to you the night before he died.”

Spock swallowed convulsively, a gesture McCoy had not seen in many years. “I remember that he laughed, that he said you would like the old-fashioned videotape...”

The words trailed off. Spock withdrew his hand and closed his eyes, suddenly seemed inexpressibly weary. “I never, as you know, sent the tape. I apologize for that. I had no right to keep it, but somehow I did not wish for you to know.”

McCoy saw Spock’s face tighten as the memory of that terrible day played itself out in his mind once again. And the fact that he had not honored Kirk’s wish was not really surprising. The last thing Spock needed was to have him fluttering around like a mother hen. Because he knew that he would have done exactly that had he known. The thought of Spock suffering such grief alone, holed up in the quarters of that ship, a quarters that he had shared with Kirk, where they had undoubtedly made love to one another, was, even now, almost unbearable.

Reaching out, the doctor touched Spock gently on the shoulder, felt him flinch slightly at the touch. He searched his brain for something to say but there was nothing, really; no way to express his feelings, to ease the Vulcan’s crushing loneliness and desolation. Words simply did not exist for such a thing.

For several moments the two of them sat quietly, each dwelling on a different memory of the friend they’d lost so many years before.

Finally McCoy spoke. “I’m glad for you, Spock.” Running his hand down the Vulcan’s arm in a familiarity he wouldn’t have dreamed of five minutes before, he captured Spock’s fingers within his own once more. “Even though you’ve suffered so much sorrow in the past forty years I’m glad for you. You and Jim loved one another more than any two people I’d ever seen. Or ever will see, I suppose. I’m glad that you shared the time you had.”

Spock said nothing. He did not open his eyes. Or indeed make any indication at all that he’d heard the doctor’s words.

McCoy watched him. “Hey.” Canting his head to one side he gave Spock’s hand a gentle shake. “Look at me, will you?”

It was a full twenty seconds before Spock did so. McCoy smiled into those devastated eyes. “Jim was right,” he said softly. “I _did_ know…at least a part of me knew. From the very beginning. I remember the first time I saw you two playing chess together in the rec room. You were sitting, elbows on the table, leaning toward one another, and Jim looked up at you.”

McCoy’s expression grew distant. “Don’t really know what it was that changed on his face, but something sure did. It got softer somehow and his smile was different; gentler, more intimate. I knew from then on that there was something between the two of you, something that excluded everyone else entirely.”

He refocused on his companion. The Vulcan sat, wrapped in that familiar cloak of silence, watching him intently. And although his expression was noncommittal McCoy could see something behind the eyes, a shadow that hadn’t been there a moment before.

 _The chess games._ Suddenly he understood. The chess games were different somehow, held a special place in Spock’s heart, and he was treading on very fragile ground when he spoke of them. Funny but memories often worked that way, the most routine things assuming enormous importance; the stuff of daily life that lingered on in one’s dreams, recreating as they did a lost world, populated by people who were often long gone, never to reappear.

Just as Jim was never going...

 _Enough of this, McCoy._ Through their shared touch he felt the Vulcan shiver. _He didn’t come here so you could rip his heart out. Give it a rest._

And so he did. He released Spock’s hand and abruptly changed the subject. “We did have some good times, didn’t we? You, me, Jim, Scotty and the rest. Racing around saving the galaxy over and over. Remember the tribbles?”

Amusement flashed across the Vulcan’s face. McCoy saw it, saw some of the sadness fade away. _Good._ “That was one of the funniest of all, I think. And the time those slime devils got out of their cage in the cargo bay and played hide-and-seek in the air ducts. Damn, those things were hard to catch. And about the ugliest creatures I’ve ever seen in my life.”

One eyebrow rose. McCoy grinned at the familiar gesture. “I know. I shouldn’t make derogatory statements about such inoffensive creatures. But you know it as well as I do, they may be harmless and peaceable little things but they _are_ ugly.”

Spock smiled faintly at that but made no reply

Silence fell between them again. McCoy was the first to break it. “And you and I, we had our share of…how should I put it? Encounters? Confrontations? Mutual irritating sessions?” He laughed as the memories came back to him. “Beads and rattles. You gave me a good one that time. Beads and rattles. Where in hell did you come up with that expression?”

The question was rhetorical and McCoy didn’t wait for a reply, just kept talking. “And of course, one of _my_ old standbys, teasing you about those ears of yours. That used to drive Jim crazy.” He glanced up. “You know he actually pushed me back against a wall once, he was so angry at me for teasing you about your ears. I guess it was just one jab too many. Don’t really know why he blew up like that, but boy, was he mad. I thought sure he was going to punch me in the mouth.” McCoy shook his head. “He had a pretty thick skin but he never could tolerate any insults directed at you.”

The doctor hesitated as other images began to surface, ones that weren’t so easy to laugh about. “Then there was that day on Melkot. I can see it as if it happened yesterday; the three of us sitting in that bar and me making all that noise about Chekov, jumping on you for not weeping and wailing all over the place. He forgot his own grief fast enough to come to your defense. And those things I said to you during the Galileo incident; the time we were in the Tholian sector and I went on and on about you wanting Jim’s command. How in the world could I have thought such a thing? That banquet at Senar, with those prostitutes. Do you remember?”

Spock nodded wordlessly. He remembered. Silly question. Of course he remembered. All of it. Every slight, every barb and cruelty. The gentle, affectionate baiting that lived on in the doctor’s memory had in reality often been neither, had in fact been nothing _but_ cruelty; deliberate, calculated, aiming straight for the vulnerable points. And hitting with deadly accuracy. McCoy had always known where to aim.

“There were times,” he said, his voice tinged with sorrow and regret, “when I really was a mean son-of-a-bitch.”

Spock sat quietly. Unable to refute the truth in the words, he said nothing at all.

McCoy understood the silence. “But the one that hurts me the most was when we were on 892 IV, after the gladiatorial combat, when we were both scared out of our britches about Jim. You fighting with those bars, ‘just testing the strength of the door,’ as you put it, and me, me pushing you down, saying those things to you, and after you’d saved my life, no less. Lord, they could have crucified you for what you did.” He shuddered at the thought. “But did I think about that? Of course not. Never even entered my mind if you want to know the truth.”

A pause, a very long pause, and when the doctor spoke again there was bitterness in his tone. “Deep down I knew that I was only trying to hurt you because I was worried about Jim. And I knew that you were, too, but I didn’t care. It was only my own feelings that I was interested in. My own needs.”

McCoy turned his face away. “That still hurts. What I said to you. It still hurts. I would have given a lot to have been able to take back those words.”

Spock laid a compassionate hand on his arm. “I understand. I understood _then._ You were concerned about the captain’s safety.”

McCoy hesitated. His heart was hammering so loudly within his chest he half expected Spock to comment on it.

But he didn’t.

Quiet settled between them once again.

“Then you’ve forgiven me?” McCoy muttered the words, his attention locked on the rug at his feet.

Spock seemed surprised by the question. “Of course I have forgiven you. Long ago.”

McCoy glanced over, searching the Vulcan’s face for any sign of duplicity or evasion. He was holding his breath, although he didn’t realize it.

Spock’s level gaze met his own. So trusting. So open. No anger or bitterness. And McCoy realized that there never had been. It simply wasn’t in his nature. _You’re a fine man, Spock. You know that? One hell of a fine man._

He saw the dark eyes soften with affection. Infallible Vulcan telepathy would be the death of him yet, but that too was beyond his control and he shrugged it away. No harm in letting Spock know what he was thinking, anyway. “That’s good.” He patted the Vulcan’s hand, noting at once that the chill was finally gone. “That’s good.” Taking a deep breath he turned toward the window. “So, _can_ you stay the night? Keep an old man company for a while?”

“Yes, Leonard. I will stay. For as long as you wish.”

There was something peculiar in the Vulcan’s voice now; a lightness, almost a joy that seemed out of place somehow. “What?” the doctor asked. “You’ve got that cat-ate-the-canary look on your face. You know something I don’t?”

Spock shook his head. But he made no reply.

And for some reason McCoy didn’t press him for one.

+++

The young woman stood by the monitor, staring at the tragic scene being enacted before her. It was one she had seen before but one that, nevertheless, always brought tears to her eyes.

The sound of a door opening came from behind and she glanced up to meet the gaze of the person entering the room. The newcomer smiled sadly, noting the grief in her expression. He inclined his head toward the adjacent room. “He’s doing it again?”

The sentence had a hint of inflection at the end but it was clear he already knew the answer to his question.

The intern nodded. “Yeah, he’s doing it again. Poor old bastard. I feel so sorry for him. He’s been talking to himself for hours now.”

She swiveled her chair around. “And it’s always the same thing; his friend coming to visit and this Jim character and how much he loved him. Then he begins to apologize. Over and over again. Talks about amoebas and Tholians, names of people and planets I’ve never heard of. And for each one I swear he’s got an apology. Spent the past half hour going on about a gladiatorial fight, whatever the hell that meant, and how sorry he was for what he said. He must be carrying around one hell of a lot of guilt.”

The woman turned back to the monitor. “Heard that they tried therapy for years to try and help him but he just wouldn’t stop blaming himself.”

Her companion gave her a strange look. She shrugged, attempted to brush it off. “I read up on it when I first started the rotation. He and this Spock person – a captain of a starship, I can’t remember which, but anyway, they were on a diplomatic mission somewhere, classified so I couldn’t find out the details, but there was a terrorist attack, a bomb or something that blasted half the building away. Miraculously the Vulcan was the only one who died; bled to death and McCoy was trapped under some debris and couldn’t help him. Nobody else in the room. Just the two of them and he had to lie there and watch him die."

The doctor shook her head. “Never did get over it, I hear.” She studied the screen again, watched grimly as the old man shuffled back to the bed, his arm out at his side as if it were wrapped around someone’s waist. “There must have been a lot left unspoken between them, a lot of sorrow in his memories. Every day he apologizes to him. Every single day. Over and over."

Silence for a moment. “And I wonder what happened to ‘Jim’?” she added, soft words spoken mainly to herself. “Never came to visit that I’ve heard. Must have died a long time back. No wonder the poor soul’s so obsessed with loneliness.”

“Don’t think about it so much.” The nurse patted her arm. He knew these things, had spent many a long hour sitting in this chair, too, but the intern was new. It helped her to talk so he let her go on without interruption.

And he’d long ago realized that of all the shifts at Shemar, this one was the toughest. The dementia wing, a sad place even on the best of days.

“He doesn’t really know what he’s saying, at least not anymore. His brain’s just stuck in a loop, that’s all. Focuses in on a particular memory and gets locked in on it. Happens to a lot of them.”

The patient was sitting on the bed now, his head turned toward his imaginary companion. Suddenly he began to laugh, deep belly laughs of pure joy.

“Now look at him,” the nurse said. “He’s actually happy. Usually he’s crying when he goes to bed but not tonight. Tonight he’s happy. Can’t remember the last time I heard him laugh.”

 _Neither can I,_ the woman thought, her forehead wrinkling in concern. Not like this anyway.

She rose to her feet, her companion taking her place at the desk. “Why don’t you go down to Kisra’s and get yourself a beer,” he said. “Help lighten your mood.”

The laughter abruptly stopped and both looked sharply at the screen, saw the patient crawl into bed and pull the blanket up to his chin. He was speaking still, but his voice was low now and they couldn’t hear what he said.

Not that it mattered, really. Most of what came out of his mouth made no sense to them anyway.

“He’ll be asleep soon,” the nurse added, “and’ll be right as rain in the morning. He’s always better after a good night’s sleep and sundowning is the worst. You know that. He doesn’t talk to himself as much in the daylight.”

The woman sighed. She knew, not that the knowledge helped much.

“Go on,” the man prodded. “You’re off duty now. Go to Kisra’s and have a drink on me.”

She gave him a weak smile. It was a good idea. A very good idea. “Yeah, I think I will.” Rising to her feet she moved quickly to the door, then hesitated and glanced back. The old man was already asleep; his chest moving so slowly he almost appeared to have stopped breathing.

Looking at the sensors, she saw that the ancient heart was still, in fact, beating. Life continued such as it was.

The young intern stiffened. She’d had enough psychological training to know what was happening to her. _Stop this,_ she told herself firmly. _Show some objectivity. You’ll never make a decent doctor if you don’t develop a sense of detachment._

It was a lesson hammered into her in a hundred different classrooms, from a hundred different teachers. A good doctor had to be dispassionate, even a bit aloof. She’d read the patient’s profile, knew that his long slide into senility had started with the unfortunate death of his friend. Probably the reason his memories were so firmly centered on the man.

He’d taken it to heart; his inability to save this Spock who so obsessed him, but, lord, every doctor knows you can’t save everyone. You win some and you lose some.

_Let that be a lesson to you, Jan. Show some distance. Otherwise you could end up like him; poor, pathetic little man. You don’t want that, do you?_

Straightening her back she left the room. No, she didn’t want that and so she made her way to the local watering hole. There, with grim determination, she drank and few beers and shared a few laughs. And didn’t think of her patient once.

When she returned in the morning it was to learn that the old man had died during the night.


End file.
